


Penance

by SourWolf



Series: Lessons Learned [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hale House Fire, M/M, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SourWolf/pseuds/SourWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hale house catches fire, Derek and Laura feel it from school, and the Stilinskis give all the help they can. Laura and Derek leave Beacon Hills to try to start over, but Derek knows there is no starting over after what he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penance

Years would pass before I would speak to Stiles again. It seems the Fates enjoyed tugging out strings closer together in times of tragedy.

Laura and I had gone to school. Now that we were both in high school, she drove us every day in the yellow Camaro our father bought her for her eighteenth birthday. He wouldn’t let her leave town in the car, so if she wanted to go somewhere with friends, she would let me drive it back alone.

Everything was perfectly fine when we left. We were gone early, which was normal because we both preferred to get time with friends before class so we could go home to have dinner and spend time with the pack.

The day started normally with simple conversation and Laura’s always-brilliant smile. Our first classes were adjacent to each other, and we both preferred it that way. It was easier for us to relax and concentrate knowing that we were so close. Ten minutes into class, it hit. Initially, it was just a wave of anxiety. Laura had a test that day so I know that she simply ignored it.

I’d been anxious a lot lately. I had recently met an older woman and things had moved a lot faster than I had planned. Before I knew it, I was sneaking out of the house, sneaking her into the house, and keeping secrets from the people I told everything. But I was a teenager with a beautiful woman using her big, brown eyes and her full lips against me. Maybe I should have known better, but I gave in every time, and every time I gave in she was sure to give me a reward.

The second wave came a few minutes later. Panic and fear washed over my body and tensed my muscles. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it might be. I had never experienced anything like this before. My eyes kept wandering to the door, expecting the pack to burst through the door to take me out and offer some explanation.

Then it got bad. I heard Laura’s groan of pain from my desk. The pain that hit me was so intense that I was simultaneously knocked out of my desk onto the floor and covered in sweat. Air refused to fill my lungs and I thought my skin would tear itself off my body. With the class staring at me in confusion, I crawled out of the classroom to find my sister doing the same.

“Derek. You too? Something’s wrong. Really wrong.” Laura said, her voice strained and high. Too high. She was in pain. Even more than I was.

We supported each other as we made our way towards the parking lot. “We have to get home.” She groaned out.

Her voice was different now, too low to be my sister. I could hear the wolf raging underneath, and it wasn’t the wolf I had known my entire life. It was stronger, more demanding. It was the voice of an alpha. I could tell by the fear on her face that Laura felt it too. She fell on the asphalt, writing in pain as a scream ripped its way out of her throat. Her warm brown eyes glowed honey, turned to gold, darkened to bronze, muted to copper, and faded to a dark garnet before burning with the rage of a strontium flame. All the while, she writhed on the ground, her skin crawled, and her scream turned into a broken howl as this new wolf took hold of her body, unprepared for the change and not meant to house this new beast.

When she was able to pull in a ragged breath and the air was filled with the barking of every dog within a fifty mile radius, Laura looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. They weren’t from the pain we were struggling with or from the change she had experienced. They were tears of sadness. Laura being forced to become the alpha meant only one thing, and she could only manage to bleat out a single word in her voice that had become weak and was threatening to break. “Dad.”

I hefted my sister to her feet and put her in the passenger seat of the Camaro. She protested at first, but I shook my head. Even her new role as alpha didn’t override my years of preparation to become what had been forced on her. Laura was in no state to drive us home, and I could get there faster.

I climbed into the driver’s side and could already see the black smoke rising over the trees. Laura’s eyes were closed. She either didn’t see or was trying to block out the image. I hoped it wasn’t the latter. She forced a smile when she opened her eyes, aiming them right at me. “Dad should have given this to you. You’re such a good driver.” She joked, trying to lighten the mood, but her voice was empty, hollow, and emotionless.

The fire was already being put out by the fire department when we arrived. Sheriff Stilinski carefully corralled us to the side yard where his patrol sat with its engine humming lightly to keep the figure inside cool against the scorching heat that the fire coughed out even as it was strangled by the constant flow of water coming from the fire trucks. We set Laura on the hood of the car, and I remained standing in front of it. I know Sheriff Stilinski was giving some speech about what could have happened, but Laura and I were both giving the house our full attention. Our house, our refuge from a world that could never understand us, our one and only haven stood in a heap of charred wood, broken glass, and shattered hearts. Its windows burned with a raging glare that I already knew was pointed at me. The Sheriff had mentioned arson, and I was the only person that had snuck anyone inside. I gave up my family’s safety for someone I barely knew and some pleasure. This was the cost. This was the cost of my lies, of having so easily given in to pleasures of the flesh, of sharing our secrets freely under the pressure of nothing more than a pair of soft, warm lips.

And the house knew it. How could it not? It heard it all, felt it all, saw it all. It knew these losses, the wounds and the scars it would now bear forever if it could even survive, the excision of the vital organs that were bound to leave it only a shell of its former self were my fault, and it glared down accusingly into my wretched soul.

Distantly, in some other world, I hear a door open and close. Soft, tentative footsteps that approached, wavered, approached, wavered again, and finally found the courage to close the gap. “Hey, Derek.”

The voice rang in my mind, forcing the house’s vicious stare off of me long enough for me to pull myself away from it. I blinked and made my head turn to look at the speaker. It took me some time for me to recognize this person. His hair was buzzed now, he had grown at least a foot, and he had a bounce to his step that I had only seen the ghost of when we met. “Genim?”

How easy was it to make this kid happy? The fact that I remembered his name nearly caused him to bubble over, but he visibly reined it back. To stop myself from rolling my eyes at him, I looked by to the hood of the police car to find Laura. She was gone, and I noticed for the first time that the car was turned off and that the air had grown cool. Had I been imagining the house’s constant, fiery gaze?

“Where is she?” I demanded, my muscles tensing and my hands tightening into fists. I thought that my worry and fear were poorly masked, but apparently I was intimidating enough to make Stiles stumble back a couple steps. He flinched, keeping his eyes down. It was as though he knew exactly how to show submission to an angry wolf. His eyes stayed on the ground, his hands hung limply at his sides, his head turned away from me, showing the pale skin of his neck that was dotted with moles.

I checked myself, knowing that there was no reason to inspire fear in the boy I had last seen crying at his mother’s funeral. “She went with my dad to the other side of the house. You went all zombie on them so they left you here.” Stiles answered fearfully as I made myself relax. It was easier knowing that Laura was alright. Now that I could relax, I realized that Stiles didn’t just know how to submit. It had probably been beaten or at least threatened into him.

“So, why are you out of school?” I asked, looking at the younger boy again finally.

The look in his brown eyes that started with excitement when an older kid remembered him and had turned into fear when I asked about my sister now sank into depression. On his face, I could see the battle that he engaged in with his own mind. Should he, could he, trust me enough to tell me his reasons?

He made his decision quickly. “I got into some trouble with people at school.” He admitted, not meeting my curious gaze.

“The bigger boys.” I supplied, crossing my arms over my chest. It made sense. He didn’t seem like the type to fit in perfectly, even with the changes he had made since I had last seem him. “How did you piss them off?”

“Well, I got tired of Jackson ragging on me and Scott, so when he pinned me against the wall and started threatening me, I screamed for him not to touch me there.” He answered, a blush crawling up his neck and darkening his cheeks.

“Impressive, Genim.” I replied with raised eyebrows. Who would have guessed that this kid would have the wits to stand up for himself like that?

“Its Stiles. I go by Stiles now.” He corrected, a goofy grin on his lips. Did he have no friends? Surely someone that he had met one time remembering his name could not have been deserving of this big of a reaction from other people. It seemed like every time I said his name, his mood would improve.

“Well, Stiles, hiding behind your father won’t last forever.” I replied, and watching as he nervous ran his hands over his buzzed head. It was plain to see that he realized I was right but didn’t want to accept it.

“I know. But I’m hoping he’ll forget about it. Sometimes I can manage to slip right under his radar.” Stiles said, and I realized that what I thought was some kind of spasm was really a gesture to get his point across.

Stiles tensed, his eyes widening in no small amount of fascination. “Whoa, hey, is that person dead?” He blurted out, taking a step towards the ambulance whose lights flashed on the other side of the house.

My brow furrowed at him and my gaze lingered just long enough to see his eyes cut to me apologetically as it sunk in that he was talking about my family. My eyes drifted to the ambulance, watching as they wheeled an unmoving body hidden under a sheet to the ambulance. Even under the sheet, I knew that the form could only be that of my mother.

“Derek?” Stiles asked in a worried voice. I was probably going zombie again, as he’d referred to it earlier.

I didn’t reply. Instead, I walked towards the ambulance with slow, heavy footfalls. A police officer put his hand on my shoulder to stop my approach, to pull me aside that I wouldn’t have to watch, but I bared my teeth and let out a low growl. The cop stumbled backwards, the scent of fear coming off of him in waves. I can only hope that my eyes weren’t giving their electric blue glow, but I didn’t care about anything but getting closer to that ambulance and finding my sister. I wouldn’t be stopped by anyone, not a police officer and not the urgent voice of a younger boy following after me.

She was standing near the boxy red and white vehicle, sobbing on the Sheriff’s shoulder. Had she been crying for long? Had she been here, needing her pack to support her while I was numbly conversing with Stiles and melting under the just accusations of the monstrous constructs of my conscience? I cursed myself again for failing my pack yet again as I went to Laura and pulled her against me, letting our pack bonds give her a strength and a hope that the Sheriff’s shoulder, though well-meaning, could not provide.

With her pack’s, her remaining family’s, her brother’s warmth wrapped around her, I felt her calm. She still cried, but her body was no longer wracked with sobs. She was no longer alone. She would never be alone. I would stay with her, protect her, and prevent her from feeling this pain ever again. It was the least I could do, the smallest amount of atonement I could muster to apologize for having opened our doors to Hunters, for having invited Death herself willingly into my home.

I rested my head against Laura’s, being sure that her vision was blocked out completely so that she wouldn’t see the parade of bodies pulled from the pyre made of our childhood memories. And there were so many. Too many. This must have been why it wasn’t logical to the Sheriff, why he was so quick to suspect arson. A family as large as ours should have found some escape. Someone should have lived without being covered in impossible burns like Uncle Peter.

After a while, the bodies stopped coming, the ambulance and fire trucks left, and we were alone with the Sheriff and his son, who stood at his father’s side awkwardly trying to keep still in our time of mourning.

“I have a hotel room for the two of you. I don’t know if you like Chinese food, but there’s some waiting for you there. If you two need anything, just let me know. Your family took care of us when we needed it. It’s the least we can do to return the favor.” The Sheriff said as he reached out and squeezed Stiles’ shoulder lightly.

Stiles looked up at us, offering a careful grin and nodding. “Yeah, anything. Really. Star Wars marathons help everything.” He said with a smile, making his father give us an apologetic look.

“Son, I don’t think now-“

“Thank you.” Laura interrupted, coming back to life and pulling away from me. She gave Stiles a hug and kissed him on the cheek. “I mean it.” She added as she did the same to Sheriff Stilinski.

She returned to my side, wrapping an arm around my waist and leaning on me lightly. I offered a grin and nodded at the pair, finding words difficult to pull out of my throat. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like anyone expected words from me. Stiles and the sheriff moved to his squad car as Laura and I moved to the Camaro. This time, she took the keys and I didn’t complain. My heart was pounding in my ears, drumming the tune of my guilt as though it had come straight from Edgar Allen Poe’s nightmares.

Laura thought I was in shock, and I was thankful for that. I couldn’t tell her what I had done. The chances for me to bear my heart to the people I loved died with the majority of my family and pack. It would never come again, so I would be whatever Laura needed now, a brother, a friend, a protector, a caregiver, anything to make sure she was safe and managed to find happiness. Laura and my guilt were the only things left in my world. She squeezed my knee as she drove and I put my hand on hers briefly before pulling away. If my heart wasn’t beating loud enough to accuse me, I was certain that the dampness of my palms would.

She didn’t notice. How, I have no clue. Maybe her mind was elsewhere, focused on the events of the day, on the morning’s innocuous start, painfully sudden climax, and the slow, cindering downward spiral that was leading us into the end of the worst night of our lives.

We parked next to the Sheriff, joining him and Stiles on the walk to the room that would be our new, temporary housing. The younger boy freaked out a little when he saw the room that his father had supplied for us. I would be lying if I said that the sheriff hadn’t gone out of his way to make us comfortable. I wasn’t even aware that a town like Beacon Hills could have a room this nice.

“Why don’t we ever get to stay in places like this when we’re in a hotel?” He asked, flopping unceremoniously onto one of the plush chairs. His father walked over to him, forcing his feet off of the chair’s arm and back onto the floor. He let out a sigh and got back up, wandering into the kitchenette. He found the Chinese food his father supplied for our dinner and started to open the bag. “Did you get stuff for us too?” He asked casually, as though he belonged right there with us through it all.

In a way, it was reassuring. We had seen him before when he was in pieces and he had managed to pull himself back together. It didn’t hurt that he ignored the events of the day now and chose simply to revel in the comforts he found in the room, accentuating the positive so naturally that it would make Johnny Mercer jealous.

The sheriff smacked Stiles’ hand away from the food, earning a whine as Stiles waved the hand in the air to shake off the pain. “Aww, Dad, come on!” He complained, sucking on his fingers lightly and, inexplicably, backing behind me as he gave his father a hurt stare.

I swallowed at the smell of food, hearing my sister’s stomach rumbling. Neither of us had eaten all day and our bodies were crying for the sustenance.

“Is there anything else we can do? If you want some company, we’d be happy to stay. Really, don’t be afraid to call me for me anything. I’ll be up all night, and if you can’t get me for some reason, you can always call Stiles or the precinct.” He said, motioning for his son to join him. Stiles let out a groan, but joined his father. The sheriff gripped his son’s shoulder to keep him in place, and you’d think that his grip was laced with acid the way that Stiles squirmed under it.

“No, thank you, Sheriff. You’ve already done so much. We couldn’t ask for more. I think we both just need some time to soak it all in.” Laura answered for the both of us, which I was thankful for since I was still trapped in my mental prison.

“Of course. Stiles, let’s go. We should let them have their time.” Stiles’ father said, releasing his hold. Stiles looked disappointed, but nodded and made his way to the door.

“Bye, Derek. Bye Derek’s sister.” The boy said, sending a wave in our direction.

“Laura. Her name is Laura, son.” The officer said with a shake of his head and disapproval in his voice.

“Bye, Laura!” Stiles corrected, smiling in our direction and waving again.

“Bye.” We said in unison, breaking my silence to be polite for the people who were trying to hard to return the favors our family had done for them years ago.

We ate in silence, watched TV in silence, took turns showering, and went to bed. The hotel room had two beds, and initially we made use of them. But I knew that Laura was having trouble sleeping, and then I heard her starting to cry. I climbed into bed with her, holding her while she cried, being strong for her. It didn’t help much, but it was enough. She didn’t stop crying until she was asleep, but I was glad that she managed to get some rest.

Rest wouldn’t come to me until two days later when my sister was driving us to the insurance agency to talk about the check would be receiving for out losses. Before we reached the building, pure exhaustion claimed my body. Apparently, my sister decided that it would be best to leave me be because I didn’t wake until she was pulling me out of the car. It was dark out and I pulled away from her, grumpily shaking my head and saying that I would walk. I didn’t bother asking how long I had been out. It had been at least eight hours, probably twelve to be this dark.

As we ate a meager dinner of hamburgers and fries, Laura filled me in about the insurance agency and how they ruled the fire to be an accident and gave me the bad news about Uncle Peter and how he was essentially in a coma that the doctors didn’t seem to have much hope about. She admitted that even with our particular advantages, she didn’t have much hope for him either.

After that day, I fell into a habit of getting only a few hours of sleep. I would stay in bed with Laura until she fell asleep, then I would go train until the dawn began to lighten before I would rush back to the hotel, shower, and crawl back into bed and fall asleep so that my sister would wake thinking I had slept most of the night.

Laura decided that the funeral services would be best held in privacy. Our family was all buried side by side with the priest that gave the last rites being the only witness aside from us. There was no wake. Even if we had wanted one, the caskets would have been closed because the bodies were too extensively burned for a showing. The sheriff managed to make an appearance even though we had not told anyone about the service. He gave my sister a hug and shook my hand; reminding us that if we needed anything that he was available to us. Laura offered a grin, and I thanked him dutifully.

The lack of emotion in my voice must have concerned him because he reached out to me and squeezed my shoulder. “Anything.” He reiterated, looking over the graves sorrowfully. He muttered something under his breath, the words half-formed so that even enhanced hearing did little to help us understand him, but it was clear that it was some attempt at a brief prayer for the broken Hale family.

He walked away, lingering at a grave surprisingly close to our family’s open graves. His fingers slid over the headstone before he kept walking, climbing into his patrol car and driving away. We stayed until the groundskeeper politely asked us to go so that they could fill in the graves. At the hotel, my sister made an impromptu decision. She turned to me and cupped my cheeks, looking me in the eyes.

“Let’s leave. We’ll drive until we need to sleep and then figure out what comes next.” She said, looking so happy at the idea of escaping that I couldn’t say no to her.

I nodded, we packed, and just like that we were on the road. We didn’t stop until we got to the east coast. New York City was a reasonable place to start over. It had a large population with a large diversity where we could blend right in. And that’s just what we did. We blended in. Laura managed to start moving on, but I never did. The truth of what I had done stayed with me, branded into my soul. I never slept more than four hours a day, my cooking improved, my grades were impressive, I became stronger, faster, a better fighter. I took care of Laura, and in turn she took care of me. I had no plans to go to college after my graduation, but she forced me to apply to at least NYU, CUNY’s Brooklyn campus, and Cornell.

She didn’t give up until I was enrolled. I had my doubts. I didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone while I was on campus and I made it known, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had gotten a lot better at giving me orders. I obeyed. I was in class when I got the text saying that she had received a message from Uncle Peter’s hospital and had already worked things out so that she could go. She had a plane ticket already, the last one on a plane that was headed to California. She promised that she would call as soon as she landed and would text me constantly so that I knew she was okay. It was a normal occurrence. I demanded that she always be in contact with me so I would know she was alright, and even that didn’t keep me from worrying.

I got the phone call after she landed. She rented a car and was already back in Beacon Hills. She joked about how her hotel room was nothing like the one Sheriff Stilinski got for us after the fire. She promised that she would call me again before she went to bed because she knew I had work that had to be done, told me she loved me, and hung up. That was the last that I ever heard from my sister. The next day, I was driving to California, a storm lingering over New York keeping me from boarding a plane.

I would find my sister. I would protect her from anything even at the cost of my life. I owed her that for being directly responsible for the fire. My penance was not paid until I was certain she could live happily and safely. Until she had a new family, a new pack that was as happy as we had been. Until her nightmares subsided into dreams of innocence and love. I would make sure that she had a chance at that, a chance I no longer deserved and could no longer take. If I had learned anything, it was that bad things happened to good people. It was not without reason, and it was not an excuse for victimization. Like seeks like. Bad people bring bad things. We are more often at fault than not, the taints that cling to some of us welcome in the bad things like a magnet strong enough to pull down a storm of meteors.

Good things are harder to find. Fresh water for a stranded sailor, signs of life in the desert, affirmations that maybe we’re on the right path after all. These things are few and far between. They give us the hope that we need to carry on, but they do not come for free. We must work for them. Because I was the one who called to tragedy like a siren on her rock, luring others to their doom, I had to work to give Laura what she deserved, and my current task was to find her.


End file.
